Transformers Prime: Loose Ends
by Inferna Firesword
Summary: A group of rogues are attacking Decepticon mining facilities. Their pasts are intertwined with both 'Bots and 'Cons, but they cannot remember the past ... or can they? Rated for language and some suggestive comments.
1. Prologue

Prologue

**Location: Earth's Atmosphere, Above Mojave Desert**

**Weather: Rainy**

**Time: 11:28 PM (PST)**

"ETA: 120 nanokliks and counting."

For what had to be the fiftieth time since they had left base, Lunarflash checked her weapons. Both her Photon Burst Rifle and EMP Shotgun were fully charged, and she had three extra energy-clips for each in case they drained – a prospect that seemed rather likely to the young flier. Six EMP grenades were within reach, and her alternate mode's weapons were primed.

All was set for the raid, so she shouldn't have a reason to fret. Yet like many a soldier before her, the anticipation of the Energon-bath ahead was far worse than the event itself, making the femme nervously go over everything she was bringing, finding nothing out of place yet still thinking that she had forgotten something.

A set of servos clapped down on her shoulders, and Lunarflash looked up into the gleaming emerald optics of Battleburst, a bulkier femme whose chassis was covered in pockmarks and dents from ancient skirmishes. The silver and indigo Transformer didn't say anything to her, but as she looked at the older warrior's calm expression, her anxiety eased. The Skyraider reminded herself that this was just the latest battle in a long string of battles, including some that she couldn't remember but dearly wished to. (The fact she had an impressive weld-job over her left optic was enough of an excuse for her.) The first battles were the testing grounds; if she had made it through full-scale mêlées in the past, she could deal with a raid on a mining installation.

Satisfied with the younger femme's newfound calm, Battleburst turned away and released the ebony and ivory Transformer from her hold. Their final squadmate was just as quiet – but then again, when prepping for a drop, Slipstream wasn't someone who talked much. The ship they were riding in was an interstellar transport: not as big as a star cruiser, but faster and heavier-armed for something its size. More importantly, though, it was equipped with a cloaking device and jammer.

"Scatterray?" Battleburst said into their private channel, addressing the final, full-sized member of their group. "We're ready to go. Any new transmissions from the strike zone?"

"Negative," replied the pilot, who had been with Battleburst far longer than either of the younger femmes. "Quicksilver, Thunderwing, and Chromebolt are all maintaining radio silence, just like the plan told them to. Prepare to drop in twenty nanokliks."

"You know the drill," Battleburst said, addressing her companions as they moved into the center of their holding area. "Keep in radio contact, don't destroy too much of the facility, shoot to offline. Ready?"

Pressing close together, both Skyraider and Stalker nodded, mentally preparing themselves for what would happen next.

"Best of luck, mates," Scatterray said, as the floor beneath them trembled. "Dropping in three … two … one … now!"

On his final word, the floor completely fell away, sending the three plummeting down towards the hard ground below. For a few moments Lunarflash felt the natural fear that all fliers felt when not transformed and in the air, but then she got control over herself and triggered her transformation. Limbs and torso twisted into new shapes, the better to suit her alternate shape of a human military jet. As her thrusters finished forming and fired, allowing her to take back control over her movements, the Skyraider's fear fell away, replaced by contentment: she was where she belonged.

On the ground, or in her bipedal form, she felt vulnerable. When she was flying, though, she felt invincible.

Beside her, Battleburst and Slipstream had both adopted their own jet alt-forms. They streaked down through thick layers of clouds, the precipitation hitting their hulls before sliding off and continuing their journey to the planet's surface.

They finally broke through the clouds, the target awaiting them below. It was a blocky building, but large and dark: thanks to the efforts of their "inside mechs," the power had been knocked out, and high above Scatterray was jamming their transmissions. Barring an act of Primus, the workers inside were cut off from the rest of their kind.

Regretfully, the joy of screaming down through the atmosphere had to end. As the trio approached ground-level, they reverted to their proto forms so they landed upright and withdrew one of their servos, replacing it with one of their two weapons. Lunarflash selected her Photon Burst Rifle, as it had a scope function, more ammunition than her other weapon, and launched three shots per trigger-pull. Slipstream had chosen her Neutron Assault Rifle; Battleburst the X12 Scrapmaker. As the younger femmes covered the area, Battleburst reactivated their comm. channel. "Scatterray, what's the status?"

"Code green. The automated defenses are down thanks to Thunderwave's work, but I'm picking up heavy Spark-activity inside."

"They've learned," Slipstream commented, amused. "Any weak entry points?"

"The entrance you're standing in front of has the lightest activity – Chromebolt's just behind it and he's reporting six 'Cons. If you go in guns blazing, he can help you out."

"Keep us posted; we're going in. Battleburst out."

Knowing this as the signal to move, Lunarflash hoisted the rifle up to her optics and fell in to flank Battleburst on the left. As the Scrapmaker had the highest rate of fire when warmed up, it was generally a good idea to keep behind the Transformer using it. Slipstream shared the other femme's sentiments, sliding into a right-flank position.

They moved forward, pausing in front of the door Scatterray had indicated. There were three automated turrets set up to defend it, but all were offline; Lunarflash made a note of their position, in case they could take control of their mainframe and turn them against the 'Cons. It was clear they had been learning from the past lightning raids on other such facilities: the last time they had attacked an Energon mining facility, there had been only two turrets at the point of entry, and they were designed to repair damage. These three were rocket sentries.

The door was opaque; impossible to see through. While it was something of a disappointment, it was also reassuring: the enemy wouldn't be able to see them coming. The black and white femme took her rifle off safety, one finger resting over the trigger. The silver and blue warrior rose her left pede, paused for a moment, then snapped it forward, sending the portal flying out of its frame in several pieces from the impact.

The six soldiers inside were taken off-guard by the explosive entrance. It was enough time for the bulkier femme to charge in, panning her Scrapmaker back and forth across the room as its rate of fire increased. Both Lunarflash and Slipstream lacked the thicker armor of their friend, so they hung back and picked off those that managed to escape the minigun's fury, grinning each time they hit someone in the helm.

All too soon the last enemy fell, and the music of battle ceased as they rested their weapons. All six Decepticons were sprawled on the floor, either offline or in stasis lock. As the three femmes reloaded their weapons, the smaller mech that made up their secondary squad emerged from his hiding place, Plasma Cannon whirring in the place of his left servo.

"Nice work," he complimented, looking around at the slumped bodies and bullet holes in the walls. "You got them all so fast that I didn't get a chance to fire a shot." While he clearly meant it as praise, there was just the faintest pouty undertone, letting them know he wasn't all that thrilled with their handiwork.

"Don't worry; you'll get plenty of chances to make up for that," smirked Slipstream to the Minicon, striding over to one stasis-locked enemy and slamming her left heel-strut down on his spark casing. Lunarflash couldn't hide her cringe at the sight. Early in their time together, the Stalker had modified her struts so they had the deadly dagger-points of combat knives, having six blades merge into one point so they could still work normally. There was no doubting their effectiveness – they were capable of breaking spark casings with one good stomp – it was just that she didn't like watching the deed being preformed.

"Where are the others?" Battleburst asked of her diminutive companion.

"Quicksilver's in the drilling section; Thunderwave in the control room. They haven't been spotted yet, but we've all seen Brutes hanging around the facility."

Lunarflash's optic ridges hiked up her helm. "They're not messing around, are they?"

"No, they aren't," agreed Battleburst. "Scrounge what ammunition you can, then be ready to fight through the whole place – their top brass takes less time to figure out what's going on each raid."

As it turned, the squad hadn't exhausted many of their supplies before the fight had ended, and the ebony-ivory jet wound up finding more three more charge clips and a double-set of her favored grenades. As the quartet prepared to rejoin their other companions and take full control of the facility, she realized that her nervousness had melted away with the gunfire. This was just another battle, and that was where she really belonged.

**XxX**

**Disclaimer/Author's Note: **I do not own Transformers, or any canon members of the franchise. The story is my own, taking place in the _Prime_/_War For Cybertron_ continuity, and I hold ownership over all OCs. In case you were wondering, the Slipstream in this story is the same one from _War For Cybertron_. Why she's not being a Decepticon is part of the plot; be patient and youll find out why.

Here's to Slipstream making her _Transformers: Prime_ debut sometime in the near future! =D

-Inferna Firesword


	2. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

**Location: Jasper, Nevada (Outskirts)**

**Weather: Cloudy**

**Time: 11:56 PM (PST)**

"Shouldn't you be in recharge by now?"

Ratchet looked up from his machine repairs to lock optics with Arcee. The motorcycle Autobot herself was leaning against one of the walls that made up the central command center, and while she was the smallest member of the team, only a malfunctioning Decepticon would think she wasn't as good as the rest of them.

"Shouldn't you?" he replied in a vain attempt to buy time, even though he knew what his answer would be.

"Optimus and Bumblebee are still out on graveyard patrol," the second-in-command shot back, rolling her optics at the obviousness of her riposte. "So long as they're gone, I'm staying up."

Once again, Arcee had demonstrated just why she was the right-hand 'bot. No matter how much she disliked some of her duties, the dark blue femme would carry them out to the best of her abilities, a trait that Ratchet admired. If he'd been charged to be the protector of the young human Jack, for example, the medic wasn't sure if he've been able to do so for a week before admitting defeat against his own exasperation. Granted, Jack and his friends had more than proved their worth against the recent Scraplet infestation, but before that – well, Ratchet was just glad he hadn't gotten saddled with it.

Besides, Arcee could blend in as a motorcycle Jack had supposedly purchased. An ambulance was a bit out-there by human standards.

"Repair work on some of the minor systems," he said, brandishing his current tool at the femme. "Residue from the Scraplets – they got their teeth into every system here."

The femme shivered at the memory of that particular day. Normally Arcee hated missing action, especially when the alternative was a slow death in the Arctic, but when it came down to a possible choice of death by Scraplets and death by cold … it shamed the warrior to admit it, but she would pick the Arctic each time. Fortunately, she had only seen the ending of the infestation, so she had gotten away with iced-over systems and a resolution to take a long trip to Hawaii whenever time allowed.

Before she could continue the conversation, the control center's screen began to flash and emit the sound they hadn't heard for weeks – an alarm that indicated their scans were picking up possible Decepticon activity. It had been relatively quiet since the battle over the Energon Harvester, giving the team some time to get in some training (and _not _accidentally haul their smaller companions into something bigger than anticipated, no matter how much that disappointed Miko), but everyone knew that wasn't going to last long when Starscream was in command.

Ratchet was quick to abandon his repair work and go to the center. His servos danced over the controls, finally pinning down on what the machine was freaking out over. "Here," he said, pointing to a map of the planet and zooming in on a place in the state of California. "There's a hotspot of activity in the Mojave. Strong Energon ore reading – I'm amazed that we haven't picked up on it before; it's so close to the surface of the crust."

"Definitely 'Con work," Arcee agreed. "But why is it showing it now?"

"Whatever they've been using to shield them from our probes must have been taken offline. I don't think they planned it, though," the medic added, pulling up another set of scans. "Look – the satellite images are showing fighter planes over the area, which has a mining facility on the ground. Some of them are Decepticons, but I'm not sure who the others are."

"Could they be government planes, or MECH pilots?"

"I'm not sure about MECH – they probably don't know enough about us to know we need Energon, or what Energon is. Agent Fowler might have engineered something, but he would've informed us if he knew about a location – we're better equipped to fight them than he is. I think we'll need to see it to know what's going on."

"I'll get Bulkhead out of his berth," Arcee called, already charging down one corridor. "Get the ground bridge ready to send us to the Mojave. Inform Optimus where we are once we make it to the other side."

As the sounds of her pede-steps faded into the distance, Ratchet wasn't sure what made him happier: the fact _something _was finally happening after weeks of relative Decepticon silence, or that – for however long it might last – he'd have the entire base to himself, with no humans running around underfoot.

**XxX**

**Location: Mojave Desert**

**Weather: Rainy**

**Time: 12:01 AM (PST)**

"Last one down!"

Slipstream looked up from the purple-branded 'Con she had finished stomping to oblivion at Lunarflash's triumphant cry, and was just in time to watch the jet straighten up and retract her Energon sword, letting the foe that had been impaled on it slide down onto the floor. She shivered slightly – while the Skyraider looked like she had a virus in her system every time she used her strut-knives, what the black and white femme didn't know was that she felt the same way every time Lunarflash terminated someone with her blade. Slipstream herself had a war club, which could crush anything that she swung it at, but there was something eerie about watching her friend nonchalantly turn what had once been a living Cybertronian into what Humans called a "shish kabob."

Battleburst saw that sign of weakness from her domineering companion, but paid it no mind: with sprawled 'Con shells carpeting the floor, including those of three Brutes, and the facility effectively under their control, a bit of recoil towards Lunarflash's methods could be excused. It had taken a few kliks longer to clean out the place, but not so long that they couldn't finish what they'd started – they just had to move faster.

"Thunderwave, Chromebolt, Quicksilver," she ordered into the comm. unit, "get the machines back online. Scatterray, come in. The plant is secure; prepare for landing."

Her closest compatriot's channel crackled a bit before his reply got through. "Understood; I'm making my approach now."

As the pilot finished his transmission, the lights that had been previously deactivated came back online. All three of the miniature mechs were geniuses with technology, but Thunderwave's very name emphasized his own specialty. His programming codes could override any machine's functions and simulate an EMP blast to them, and those codes would spread through interconnected machines. However, if he willed them to turn off, or one of his brothers did, they would deactivate and leave the machines as if they had never been tampered with.

Lunarflash and Slipstream had already begun what they had practiced so many times. While the Minicons operated machines, salvaged intelligence (and erased it), and reprogrammed the security systems, Lunarflash opened the docking bay and the Stalker began moving Energon cubes that had been pre-produced and meant to be shipped to the _Nemesis_, preparing them to be brought to their own ship. Once that was exhausted, the younger femmes would create empty containers to be filled with the precious material, and keep doing so as long as was safe.

Their jobs were being done, now she had to do hers: collect the weapons and munitions that could be found, and simultaneously watch their afts for any signs of trouble that were being reported.

Just the control center alone was carpeted with the true loves of a soldier; the commanders on the _Nemesis _had clearly been trying to keep the station under Decepticon control. They hadn't succeeded, obviously, but she still gave a mocking mental salute to them as she loaded several shipping containers with crates of ammo charges, sets of flak grenades, thermo mines, and even precious healing charges. Thermo Rocket Launchers, Energon Battle Pistols, Scatterblasters, and Magma Frag Launchers were pulled off the bodies of many sparkless shells, and the observations of the Minicons had promised even more in other rooms. This attack alone would fuel their efforts for a long time to come – and this had just been raid number three!

The whine of deactivating thrusters emitted from the open hanger doors as Scatterray brought the transport to another perfect landing, triggering the doors to the cargo holds as the ion engines deactivated. The light blue and green Transformer hopped out of the cockpit, polarizing his optics to compensate for the different light levels.

"What's the word up there?" asked Lunarflash as she ran in, beginning to help Battleburst hoist the containers of arms and ammo into one hold; behind her, Slipstream moved the first load of Energon out of the control center and started loading that too.

"There's a squadron of about twelve fliers inbound; I picked them up on my sensors while finishing the descent. They're about five kliks away."

The silver-indigo femme spared a few precious nanokliks to employ some choice curses – they were running short on time – then initiated the next step in their operation. "Scatterray, Slipstream," she ordered, "continue loading the transport, but be ready to leave at any moment. Minicons, set the security system to target any Decepticons, then prepare the heavy explosives. Lunarflash, you're with me."

Spark thrilling at the orders, Lunarflash finished loading the final munitions crate and followed Battleburst out of the hanger. The first two raids had resulted in the leader taking Slipstream out to fend off the reinforcements; this was the first time she had confirmation that she was respected as a good flier – though then again, Battleburst seemed to think Slipstream was older by some-odd solar cycles. The ebony-ivory femme wasn't sure how she figured _that_ – the Stalker had the same amnesia hiccup in her CPU as the Skyraider – but at the moment, that didn't matter.

The room they entered was smaller, but taller; a perfect launch tower for flying Cybertronians. A small crate filled with silvery, twelve-faced polyhedrons was set on the side, and Lunarflash eagerly grabbed a set of three – she knew what these did. The pair got a running start, shifted into alt-forms, and then rocketed up to fight.

**XxX**

**Location: Mojave Desert**

**Weather: Rainy**

**Time: 12:10 AM (PST)**

Hauling Bulkhead's aft out of his berth and into the control center had been much harder than most would assume – while Arcee was vice-commander, the ex-Wrecker was absolutely _huge _in comparison to her, and weighed as much as he looked. When she finally had taken him out of his recharge mode and dragged him through the groundbridge (much to the amusement of Ratchet), precious time had slipped away. As a result, Arcee wasn't in the best mood, no matter how many times her teammate apologized.

Of course, that all became a moot point when they actually exited the groundbridge and got a good look at their surroundings. The facility was tucked into the foothills of the Mojave's mountains, where the false promise of salvation had driven humans in past centuries to walk across the dried-up basin and die of thirst. A rare storm was rumbling above, but the flashes of lightning would briefly illuminate a dogfight above. The smoldering wrecks of several jets were on the ground already; even from a slight distance Bulkhead could recognize the Decepticon insignia on most of them.

The grey-green Autobot himself rose up his arm cannon and exchanged it for his Thermo Rocket Launcher, intensifying the power flow to his optics as he triggered their infrared function. It was hard for him to mark a target, as the some-odd jets weaved in their sky dance, but he finally managed to get a lock on someone with a purple device painted on their left wing and fired.

Rich satisfaction came as he watched the pair of rockets he launched race through the air; his target swerved and dove, but they couldn't evade it forever. They finally connected, and the Decepticon Seeker began to spiral to earth.

The two Autobots had been standing on a ledge when they had arrived on the scene; now Arcee jumped down and ran full-tilt towards the facility, pausing only to use her Energon Battle Pistol to offline a feebly-stirring Seeker that was in her way. Another Seeker noticed her mad dash towards what had been theirs and went into a power dive, opening fire as he went down –

Only to be hit from behind by another jet that burst out from the cloud cover.

Things get ugly when a Seeker wound up with three rockets up their afterburners, especially from point-blank range. Arcee had the somewhat dubious honor of seeing the results of such an attack as the Decepticon slammed into the ground and the attacker – a Sukhoi Su-35, if her optics were reporting correctly – soared in for a running landing, transforming into a bipedal shape.

The motorcycle found herself looking at another female Cybertronian; her body was slightly altered by the Earth alt-form build, but Arcee could identify it as a rough version of the Skyraider chassis, named after a Seeker caste from the days before the War For Cybertron. It wasn't those details that she focused on, or the black-white color scheme – it was the optic color.

This femme's eyes were blue, like the other Autobots. All Autobots had altered their optics to be varying shades of cerulean when the war had really got going, to help them identify each other when their insignias weren't visible. Was this femme an Autobot who hadn't made contact with their group?

Above, a second flier had begun to dive towards the ground, three Seekers in hot pursuit. The entrance Arcee had been running towards flew open as a few ground-based Decepticons burst out, shown through by a series of rockets that came from deeper inside. The door was flanked by a quartet of rocket sentries that instantly went online when the group crossed their electric eye beam; only one managed to run outside their range before it collapsed, fluids leaking from his crippled legs where blasts had made contact.

The Skyraider didn't pay much attention to the motorcycle Autobot; even when the heavy impacts of Bulkhead's running started getting more severe as he moved to join the vice-commander, she just formed an EMP Shotgun on her right arm, fired a point-blank shot at her victim, and then turned her focus on the jet that was surely her ally, now cartwheeling through the sky to avoid missile salvos. Her left servo subspaced a silver package that Arcee and Bulkhead both recognized as a disruption charge, which – when activated and thrown like a grenade – would force those in its blast radius to transform and then lock them in that form for two kliks.

For obvious reasons, the Autobots had utilized them whenever they could against the Seekers on Cybertron. As the disruptor charge was thrown directly into the V-formation of Decepticons and the pursued jet peeled off just before it was set off, both of the 'bots present cringed.

The trio had a very rough crash-landing, most likely ending up in stasis lock if not getting offlined.

The other jet – a Blackbird Sr-71 – shot down to join the Skyraider and transformed into another femme, who was bigger and bulkier than the slender Skyraider. This one was silver and indigo, with green optics; a rarity amongst Transformers nowadays. Her body type didn't seem to fit any one caste-chassis – it looked like a hybrid between all of the six types Arcee knew, with another unknown type that she didn't thrown in there too. Her servo was swapped for an X12 Scrapmaker, and as both newcomers turned their attention and gun barrels to the Autobots standing some distance from them, Bulkhead and Arcee prepared to fight.

"Orders?" the black-white femme asked the larger one. Her voice seemed familiar to the high-ranking Autobot, but that was the least of her worries now.

"Standing," answered the other one; her own tones were soft, but scratchy, like there was something wrong with her vocoder.

The Skyraider shrugged and pulled out another disruption charge. "Sorry, mates," she said to the other Transformers without a hint of remorse as she activated it, then she deliberately tossed it at them as her companion opened fire.

Both the motorcycle and the ATV pickup dove as far away as they could from the charge just before it exploded, transforming as they did for greater speed. Bulkhead veered wildly around to try and charge them with his high-impact Ram ability, while Arcee got to higher ground where she could best utilize her Battle Pistol.

Bulkhead's high-speed rush towards the ebony-ivory femme didn't seem to faze her – on the contrary, laughter erupted from her vocoder like the whole attack was a big joke. She was having fun, and when she zipped to the side with the help of the thrusters on her shoulders and pedes, like a matador to a robotic green-grey bull, her servos flew out to dig into his side, lift him off the ground and – using his momentum to her advantage – spin and throw him aside, with the Autobot landing heavily on his roof.

Groaning, the ex-Wreaker transformed back into his robot mode, only to realize that he was on his side now, instead of on his back. Grinning maliciously, the femme utilized her thrusters again, dashing forward for the kill. Instinctively Bulkhead looked towards Arcee, but she wasn't available to give him some breathing room – the Blackbird femme had her pinned down with Scrapmaker fire.

The mech ran through his options, internally cursing as he realized how limited they were. His own Dash thrusters were of no use while on his side, and both of his weapons could deal more damage to him than to his attacker at this close range. Ditto with his Omega Missile: that'd take her out, but he'd be just a pile of parts. Mentally, Bulkhead promised himself that if Primus gave him and Arcee a way out, he'd swap the Omega Missile with the Shockwave tech that Arcee and Bumblebee had.

"Give Primus my regards," said the femme, a death-head grin on her helm as her shotgun barrel was waved in his face. Bulkhead instinctively started to try and gain his pedes, but before she could squeeze the trigger, a loud roar caught the attention of the combatants, giving him enough time to get back up

From the facility hanger rose a large transport, vertical thrusters powered up in its fight against gravity. Bulkhead recognized it as a modified troop shuttle from the War for Cybertron; the cockpit was well-lit, but he could only see the darkened silhouettes of the passengers; he thought one might be another flier, but he couldn't be sure. The Autobots saw it as another sign of trouble, but the two rogue femmes took it as a retreat signal.

"Come on!" cried the larger femme before she went into alt-mode and raced into the sky. The Skyraider looked back towards Bulkhead and winked at him before she kicked her foot thrusters into gear, dashing backwards before she got airborne and neatly avoided a cannon blast from the ex-Wreaker at the same time.

The two Autobots opened fire at the two jets, but their shots all missed as the pair raced up to the transport and boarded it through the side. Like the pilot had been waiting for them, the boarding panels sealed and the ship turned towards the facility, missile ports angling for the best shot at the building.

Arcee and Bulkhead realized what was going to happen the same time that the remaining Decepticons did. With a lot of panicked yells the last of them scattered, save the one that had been able to escape from the inside; with his crippled leg, he was now a sitting duck in the middle of the plateau. Instinctively, Bulkhead grabbed the soldier under his arms and hauled him to the place Arcee had taken refuge in – a gap between several rocks all clustered together, roughly one-fourth of a kilometer from the facility. She might have had something to say about him saving the enemy's life, but the actions of the rogues cancelled it out.

The transport unleashed a salvo of missiles directly on the center of the complex; from the resulting fireball, Bulkhead estimated that high explosives had been laid in that area to wipe it out. More, he guessed, had been placed in other areas, and the intense heat had triggered it.

All together, it created an explosion that turned most of the complex into a skeleton of what it had once been. The fire ripped over the area that the two had been fighting the rogues, to say nothing of where the Decepticon grounder had been stranded. Seemingly satisfied by the destruction they had wrecked, the rogues turned away and roared into the atmosphere, quickly becoming invisible in the clouds.

It was a while before anyone in the crevice – the Decepticon or the Autobots – could speak, out of shock over the whole ordeal. When the fires finally began to dim down, dampened and controlled by the storm, they emerged from the cramped space that had saved their lives – and immediately got back to business as usual. Bulkhead slammed the reddish-purple 'Con down on the ground, letting the rain patter down on their chassis' as he pinned the other mech with one servo and pointed his arm cannon directly into their enemy's face. Arcee – knowing the power of that weapon as much as the other grounder did – moved to a position where she could look into the captive's red optics. She didn't think he'd be so foolish as to try and escape with Bulkhead's cannon half a foot from his helm, but she kept her Battle Pistol ready.

Just in case.

"What's your name?" the motorcycle asked – she hated not knowing her enemy's designations. The Decepticon momentarily appraised their weapons and stances, seizing them up like he wondered if they were prepared to carry out the silent threat. Seemingly convinced that the best way to conserve his existence was to start talking, he loosened his mouth plates. "Swerveback."

"Alright, Swerveback, who were those fliers?"

The 'Con shook his helm, but not with the panic the two warriors had seen before in some of the younger enemy soldiers. He was a battle-hardened mech, who did not fear deactivation. "We don't know. For the past three Human weeks, they have attacked our mining facilities across the planet, deactivating our soldiers inside and destroying the buildings when they retreat. Starscream and Soundwave have been trying to pin down on their base of operations, but they always wipe the security footage clean before they leave." His optics narrowed in suspicion as a thought occurred to him. "One is a grounder like you two, but three are fliers, not counting their Minicons. One looks like a Skyraider. Just what do you Autobots have in this?"

Neither of the "grounders" in question bothered to answer that question – if this Decepticon was convinced they had something to do with these attacks, they wouldn't have much of a chance of persuading him otherwise. Decepticons were stubborn in that way. Instead, Arcee's servos grabbed a certain metal fracture point in a move she had picked up from a Crystalocution practitioner during the War For Cybertron. While she didn't make one of Swerveback's limbs fall off, like the practitioner could have done, she was successful in temporarily off-lining their enemy just long enough for them to leave the area.

Back in their vehicle modes, both Autobots contacted Ratchet and had him place their ground bridge in a location further away from the mining facility. Swerveback, once he came around – which wouldn't be long – was bound to contact his commanders and share his new "intelligence" with them, which was almost a guarantee that more Decepticons would be on the site. Whether they were there or not would not refute or confirm the claim, but neither felt like waiting for Starscream's crew to arrive.

"Arcee," Bulkhead said as they drove towards the ground bridge's location, like the notion had just occurred to him, "Swerveback said that one of the rogues was a Skyraider, right?"

"Right, and I fought her. You don't happen to know of any other Skyraider femmes with black and white paint, do you?"

"Negative."

"I was afraid you'd say that."

"Bumblebee's not going to like this."

"I already don't like it."

**XxX**

**A/N: **Since I have a feeling I might've confused a few people (or more) with my designations of some of the characters, here's the method to my madness. Since I drew a lot of the lore I'm using from _Transformers: War For Cybertron _and _Transformers: Exodus_, I decided to assign the chassis types from WFC's Multiplayer as sub-castes to a larger caste. For example, the given caste name for fliers is _Seeker_ (or Aerialbot for the Autobots), but the chassis types for them in WFC are representative of sub-sects within the larger caste. Here's the shorter version of that convoluted explanation:

**Caste Name: Seekers**

Autobot Aerialbots (sub-caste names and examples)

Air Defender (Jetfire)

Skyraider (Air Raid)

Interceptor (Silverbolt)

Decepticon Seekers (sub-caste names and examples)

Energon Seekers (Starscream, Skywarp, Thundercracker)

Stalkers (Slipstream)

Retaliator (Shockwave) (Decepticon fliers have a thing for names starting with _S_, don't they?)

I'll add more examples for other castes if needed. =)

-Inferna


	3. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

**Location: Jasper, Nevada**

**Weather: Sunny**

**Time: 6:45 AM (PST)**

"Drive safely, Jack!"

The call floated out of the door as it shut behind Jack Darby, and the black-haired teen shook his bangs out of the way; a headshake born from both necessity and resigned indulgence. While he could understand where his mother's concerned words came from, he had a teen's inner confidence in his own abilities. He also had another form of confidence – the fact that when it came to riding _this _particular motorcycle, crashing was highly unlikely.

Pulling on his biking helmet – another form of humoring his single mom – Jack walked down his driveway where, as usual, Arcee was transformed and waiting for him. When Arcee had been assigned to be his protector, she had got him to tell her when his house started to become active, and then started arriving from the Autobot base thirty minutes before his mother got up. He had tried to dissuade her from it – he knew she stayed up later than most of the Autobots, since she was second-in-command – but she didn't like taking the risk that June Darby might happen to wake up earlier than usual, glance outside, and notice something suspicious about her son's new bike.

"Ready to go, Arcee?" he asked, pitching his voice so his mom wouldn't hear him talking to "his bike." Unlike most of the mornings, where Arcee sounded a little groggy but always was lightning-quick with her replies, today she was a few seconds slower and seemed to have been awakened from a nap by his question.

_Or whatever the hell Autobots call naps._

"Yeah, Jack, I'm ready," the blue motorcycle said drowsily, what sounded suspiciously like a stifled yawn following the reply. More anxiously than he'd been in a while, Jack sat down on the saddle. "You sure? It's not a good idea to fall asleep behind the wheel, Arcee," he added with a nervous laugh.

"No, I'm fine," she insisted, sounding much more alert and sharp. "Just been a long night. I'll be glad to get back to base and go into recharge. Come on, let's go."

While Jack wasn't quite sure about that, he knew from past experience that pressing the subject would be pushing the line between morning grouchiness and Arcee's real temper. Letting it go for now, he lightly touched the area that would turn over a real motorcycle's engine. In reply, the Autobot snapped up her kickstand and let the engine roar to life.

Easily, the pair pulled out of the driveway and into the street. At the moment, Jack was the one doing the work of steering – for Arcee it was coasting at 30 miles per hour, with her providing the continuous push. If danger arose – like the possibility of a crash, or if some pesky Decepticons came along – she would easily snatch back full control of their speed and direction, and he'd just hang on as they hit 70 MPH.

"So what was this long night?" he asked. While he wasn't nearly as gung-ho as Miko when it came to things like B&E or ground-bridging onto a freight train that carried a nuclear device, it didn't stop him from being curious about the Autobot's day-to-day activities.

"You heard about that explosion in the Mojave?"

"Yeah, it was all on the news this morning. Was it a Decepticon base?"

"It was. Ratchet picked up Decepticon signals last night and bridged me and Bulkhead over there. Wish we could've been the ones to blow it up, though."

"You didn't do the explosion?"

"No. Some gang of rogue Cybertronians did that. We interrogated a Decepticon we caught in the aftermath; he said this is the third similar raid in as many weeks. Fowler isn't too happy with us about it, but we've got bigger issues to deal with.

"One of the rogues was a female flier named Lunarflash. She was part of the last generation of Transformers to emerge from the Allspark before it was ejected from Cybertron, and she lived to make it off-planet. She vanished not long afterward, and no one's seen her since then … until now."

Behind the helmet's visor, Jack's eyebrows climbed up his forehead. "So what're you guys going to do about it?"

"At the moment, nothing. We don't know where their base is, and until they show up again, we can't try to capture them. Bumblebee knew Lunarflash, and he's not thrilled about the idea of her being our enemy, so he's insisting we let her return to active service once we get her."

"Will you?" They were getting close to Jasper High School, but they were still in a safe region; they could talk without the risk of accidentally exposing their secret.

"Depends. Optimus is working on pulling up her service records – or will, once he finishes with Fowler. Once he gets an idea on her reliability, he'll call the shots."

The two veered their way through the crush of traffic that was beginning to form outside the school. Jack directed Arcee to the usual place, close to where Bulkhead was dropping off Miko. Even through the tinted windows, the teenage boy could see the outlines of the hologram all the Autobots were capable of generating – remotely-controlled, perfect mimicries of Humans they used to accent their vehicle disguises: occupying the driver's seat for the ones with cabs, occupying the saddle when he wasn't with Arcee.

The sound of a door slamming heralded Bulkhead driving off, revealing Miko as Jack parked in the furthest corner of the lot. The din made it very difficult to be heard even when yelling, but the Japanese exchange student's enthusiastic wave in his direction told him she wanted to chat.

"Get some rest, Arcee," he said, lightly squeezing her left handlebar, which was the closest he would ever go to hugging the prickly female Autobot.

"Good luck, Jack," she said – the closest she ever went to saying, 'Be careful.' "Watch out for any 'Cons, or any black-white jets, in that case."

**XxX**

**Location: Olympus Mons, Mars**

**Weather: Calm**

**Time: 10:07 AM (PST – Earth)**

A gentle _ping _roused Lunarflash from her recharge cycle and caused her systems to begin rebooting. Ordinarily she would stand and start getting the kinks out of her joints while that happened, but the processer-ache that was currently throbbing away in her helm convinced the femme that remaining on her berth would be a better option right now.

Letting a groan escape her vocoder, the Skyraider rubbed her temples as her optics blurrily came back online. She had known high-grade Energon did a number on her CPU for a long time – it was one of those annoying, instinctive pieces of knowledge that had no memories to back it up – and because of that, she had been avoiding the cubes of high-grade that inevitably came out after each successful raid. A few Earth-hours ago, though, she had succumbed, ingested a cube, and then promptly staggered off to her quarters – in a manner that would do nothing for her dignity – to ride out her overcharged state in her berth.

As she finished reactivation, Lunarflash tentatively sat up – good, the room wasn't spinning like it had earlier – and ran her glossa over her derma. A grimace crossed her faceplate: the taste made her wish that she had what Humans called "mouthwash" on hand to get rid of the foul taste. And that had just been one cube.

_Well,_ she thought, _at least I'm better off than Slipstream. She was on her third cube when I left._

The thought somehow reminded the Skyraider about a Human song she had heard once, but trying to remember specifics made her processer-ache worse. (It had something to do with rockets, she was sure of it.) Resolving to figure out that conundrum once thought-cohesion returned to its normal state, the ebony-ivory jet slipped out of her berth and onto her pedes. Thankfully, her balance wasn't out of whack, so she could stand on her heel-struts without wobbling.

Walking, however, was another matter altogether. After a few attempts to stride along like usual nearly made her fall on her aft, Lunarflash swallowed her pride and leaned on the wall, her servos touching the metal as she left her quarters.

The journey from her room to the refresher units, as steps went, wasn't very long. However, it was long enough that several of the drones that kept the base maintained – from repair work to mining and refining the Energon that was beneath this planet's surface – came by and saw the Skyraider staggering along. Drones didn't have the sentience that Cybertronians did, mercifully, but her ego was still stung by their inquiring looks.

_Never again, _Lunarflash swore to herself as she gratefully slipped inside the refreshers. _I will never touch a single cube of high-grade for the rest of my life cycle._

There were eight refresher cubicles in the room, with one of them already occupied. The _hiss _of ice-cold solvent came from behind the misted pane, but a silhouette still emerged due to the lighting panels, helm turned up so their faceplate would feel the temperature full-blast. The spiky wings emerging from the washer's shoulders and back gave it away as Slipstream.

"How're you doing?" the Skyraider asked, stumbling in the cubicle across from the Stalker and turning on the solvent. Unlike her trinemate, she went for a higher-temperature.

"Badly. My processer feels like it's going to explode from the pain, and I'm barely able to keep my balance. You?"

Glancing over at the other cubicle, the ebony-ivory femme realized that her friend's outline did seem to be quivering a bit, like she was unsteady on her pedes. As her processer-ache was beginning to subside, she began putting wax over her chassis as she replied, paying extra attention to her wings. "From the sound of things, not as bad as you, but my dignity did get punctured on the way down here. Dare I ask about the others?"

Slipstream's helm turned towards Lunarflash's voice, and even through two panes of somewhat-opaque material the Skyraider could see her red optics roll. "The Minicons are still passed out, and – well, you know Battleburst and Scatterray. They downed five cubes each last night and they look completely normal; they're even walking properly. I'd like to know what secret they have so I can start using it."

As she turned off the solvent and began buffing off the wax, Lunarflash briefly considered sharing her thoughts about high-grade, then decided that it was too early for that. Instead, she went for a more business-oriented question: "What's on tap for today; do you know?"

"Negative. The drones got everything sorted out while we were all overcharged and crashed. Scatterray said something about an assignment that's even bigger than these raids, but he wasn't ready to tell me anything."

"So it's basically a free day is what you're saying."

"Right. Wanna do the fly-by with me?"

"Nah; I'm doing my usual thing." Still buffing her chassis, a question occurred to the younger femme and she added, "Slip, why do you keep doing it?"

"First off, quit calling me Slip. Secondly, doing what? You make it sound like an accusation."

As the hiss of running solvent vanished from the opposite cubicle, the Skyraider continued on like she hadn't heard the Stalker's first sentence. "Slip, why do you keep flying over the strike zones when there's still smoke rising from the ruins and 'Cons crawling around?"

"Because I like to," Slipstream retorted, stepping out and grabbing a drying cloth off the nearby rack. "It's exciting to do it, same way fighting is. And if I've told you once I've told you a thousand times, _enough _with calling me Slip."

The wax was all buffed off by now, leaving Lunarflash's frame gleaming in the light of the illumination panels. Satisfied with her appearance – the ebony-ivory femme liked scratches and welds, but disliked rust and grime – the Skyraider left her cubicle. The processer-ache was gone, and while her walking was still wobbly, her thoughts were cohesive again.

"Slipstream," she said, trying to catch the Stalker's gaze, "why won't you stop tempting fate? If they catch you, all Pit is going to come down around our audios."

"Ah, but you're forgetting something."

"And what's that?"

"They never see me. And even the best 'Con can't catch what they can't see." The olive-violet femme grinned, her sharpened derma revealed by parted lip plates.

Ordinarily Slipstream's cocky confidence was reassuring, but not this particular time. Perhaps the lingering taste of high-grade was making Lunarflash more pessimistic; another reason to avoid the stuff. Nonetheless, she couldn't shake the thought that if Slipstream went off again on her Unicron-may-care 'mission,' something horrible might happen.

A ridiculous notion, naturally, but still …

"Just be careful, alright?" she said awkwardly. "I don't want to lose a trinemate."

"I always am, Lune," smirked the other femme, tossing her used cloth aside, no longer requiring it. "Come on; let's get the starting Energon and find the others."

It abruptly occurred to Lunarflash that she hadn't checked her energy levels at all since waking. Performing the necessary scans, she cursed, realizing that her power was low; less than 30%. No longer caring about dignity, she tossed her cloth aside and dashed out of the refreshers, Slipstream running behind her.

**XxX**

**Location: Jasper, Nevada (Outskirts)**

**Weather: Sunny**

**Time: 11:07 AM (PST)**

To say Agent Fowler had been ticked off was an understatement. The agent couldn't come to a face-to-face meeting with the Autobot leader – he was busy chasing MECH with some of his associates – but he had managed to get wind of the explosion before the news crews had. Covering up the incident had taken a lot of skillful lying, along with some string-pulling to make the area within a three-mile radius of the zone an "Area 51" region, where civilians _would _be shot at.

Of course, the one doing the shooting wouldn't be Humans, but Decepticons, but it would at least dissuade foolhardy explorers from trying to catch a glimpse of the area.

After a _very _long discussion with the Human, Optimus was finally able to start looking through the databases for information on Lunarflash, the femme that had been at the Mojave site. After a refuel, a check of the base personnel (Arcee and Ratchet were both in recharge in their quarters), and scanning the blotter for any signals in space that could possibly be Autobot ships, the Prime called up records the main members of the Autobots had carried off Cybertron during the Great Exodus. Each Autobot soldier had registered themselves in it when they had been marked with their insignias, and their files were classified by alt-mode, gender, rank, designation, and chassis build.

_Alt-Mode: Jet_

_Gender: Femme_

_Chassis: Skyraider_

_Designation: Lunarflash_

After the keywords were entered, a pause followed. Three astroseconds later results came, beginning with an image capture. As it had been taken before the Great Exodus, the Lunarflash in the picture had still retained her Cybertronian jet alt-mode, so her build was a slimmer variation of the average Skyraider's, with modifications for maximum thrust and aerial agility. Over her left optic was a large, crescent-shaped weld, which she had obtained during the Battle for Kalis; Optimus remembered that had been the battle where Bumblebee had first met the young flier and the pair had become friends. In the image capture, Lunarflash's wings and extremities matched the color of deepest, darkest space, but her torso and helm were the blinding white of Arctic snow.

All in all, the image was a near-perfect match to the description Arcee and Bulkhead had brought back. Scrolling down, her records were promising: a stellar performance during battles Miko might've called "the War's greatest hits." She had emerged from the Well of All Sparks not long after the war had truly broken out, been trained by fellow Skyraider Air Raid, and was renowned for her ability to stand alone in a fight, on land or in the skies.

Yet Lunarflash had vanished some time after the Exodus, and for the Spark of him Optimus Prime could not remember. That wasn't disturbing in itself – all of the Autobots had suffered minor system damage from tanking up on Energon that wasn't from Cybertron, and even the best suffered memory glitches at times. What _was _disturbing was that – when he looked for her status and the reasons for it, he found suspiciously little.

_Status: MIA; presumed KIA_

_Evidence: CLASSIFIED_

Optics narrowed in suspicion and surprise, the eighteen-wheeled Transformer entered his personal access codes. During his life as Orion Pax, he had done a fair amount of computer tinkering, and had made some files in the database available only to those that had the proper codes. All the same, he had added his codes already, so it shouldn't have been classified at all.

Yet when he added his codes and did the search again, the new results were more confusing than they had been before.

_Status: MIA; presumed KIA_

_Evidence: ERROR; FILES MISSING_

Blue optics were briefly off-lined and then reactivated. This wasn't normal – Ratchet had taken great care in making sure that the files weren't tampered with when placing them on Earth, and had them protected with practically every anti-virus program known to man and Cybertronian. How could have this happened?

**XxX**

**A/N: **For the record, the song Lunarflash was thinking of was "Rocketeer" by Far East Movement and Ryan Tedder. I don't know how that fits, but she was suffering a hangover and I figured that not many things will make sense with a giant headache.

Next chapter: Slipstream and Chromebolt realize that going into hostile territory hours after recovering from a hangover is a bad idea.

-Inferna


	4. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

**Location: Earth's Atmosphere, Above Mojave Desert**

**Weather: Dry; High Cloud Cover**

**Time: 2:39 PM (PST)**

When it came to flying, Slipstream knew she was the best in the base. She would never voice that opinion when _in _the base, naturally – Lunarflash would take offense and Battleburst would give her the infamous "Shut up and put your thrusters where your vocoder is" glare – but to herself, she knew, just _knew_, that they knew it too. And when it came to flying in battle, only Battleburst herself surpassed the Stalker. It was why she had been picked to help hold the Decepticons back two out of three raids – the Skyraider's turn had come because Battleburst thought the ebony-ivory femme was feeling left out. Slipstream had to admit the younger flier had done well, except for the part when she had toyed with her green-grey enemy instead of just blowing his helm clean off with her shotgun. It wasn't that she herself didn't enjoy power over her prey, but there was a time and place for such things, and a crazy battlefield was not right in either sense.

Flying was part of her nature, and so was flying in battle. They were highs she could never get enough of, but she didn't say it as such around the others. Lunarflash already was worried about her, needlessly concerned about her constant love for flying in danger zones, and Scatterray – being the medical mech – would want to crawl around her processer to try and figure out what "glitch" made her feel so good when in danger. When she requested permission to Battleburst to fly by this latest strike zone, Slipstream had given the usual explanation: it was a job-well-done, and she wanted to savor it.

As usual, Battleburst had granted that request. Also as usual, she had done so on the condition that Slipstream take Chromebolt with her – a rather unfortunate thing, since the only time the pair got along was on the battlefield.

_Why Chromebolt? Why Chromebolt? _She inwardly fumed as she lurked inside the sparse cloud cover, the Minicon safely inside her cockpit. _Why couldn't Quicksilver come with me, and not with Lunarflash?_

It was an empty question, though: Chromebolt was highly critical of Lunarflash's flying style, comparing it to an over-charged hawk (a comment that had almost earned him an EMP blast to the torso courtesy of Slipstream, but Scatterray had talked her out of it), and refused to fly with her unless he had no other choice.

At least Lunarflash was close by, as the jet flew. Maybe they could send code bursts and arrange for a swap of partners eventually, or just join the Skyraider.

Slipstream shoved the processer-drifts aside and focused on what she had come to see. Pictures they had hijacked from Human satellites (which were also the source of the youngest femme's seemingly endless music library) had given her an idea of what to expect at the scene, but it had been taken from space, and her sensors at fifteen thousand Human feet were much more detailed. The facility was a charred shell, most of the roof was gone, plasma scarring was everywhere, and even several hours after they had torched the place, smoke still curled up lazily from a few places, mostly from the section where machines had drilled for Energon deposits, similar to those used on Mars.

What gave her the greatest pleasure, though, were the Decepticons below, sifting through the debris and trying to piece the mystery together. It was almost like gloating, looking down on them, but there was real danger in play as well. One mistimed movement to a bit of cloud cover, one too-alert Vehicon, and their presence could be detected …

"Amazing, isn't it?" she softly asked her passenger, who was safely ensconced in the cockpit of her F-22 Falcon alt-mode.

"Yeah, really interesting," the Minicon replied, but she knew it was just an act. He hated coming back to strike zones, and had only gone because Battleburst had made him chose between Slipstream, Lunarflash, and work overseeing the mining drones. "Can we go now?"

Before the Stalker could point out that they had just arrived ten kliks ago, instinct made her retreat further into the clouds and trigger her cloaking function. Astroseconds later, two Decepticon Seekers roared by, close enough that she could brush them with her servo had Slipstream been in bipedal mode. Both ripped through the high clouds and were gone in an instant, their contrails and exhaust lingering.

"That was close," whispered Chromebolt, sounding slightly subdued.

His companion didn't reply. Every sensor was flared by this close call, and this sort of thing was what she craved. Curiosity also played a part: where were those two going in such a rush, and why? She didn't know, and she would bet every Energon crystal on Mars that Chromebolt didn't, either. "Let's check it out," she suggested, carefully emerging from the cloud cover so her cloaking wouldn't be compromised.

"Let's not," the Minicon wheedled. "Battleburst said for us to stay hidden, remember?"

To Slipstream, his tone sounded goody-goody, and a new wave of irritation crashed in her processer. It took much of her concentration to keep her voice somewhat level as she replied, "We're not gonna attack – we'll just sneak closer and see what's going on. Aren't you curious?"

"… Yes, but …"

Sensing Chromebolt's faltering resolve, Slipstream decided that one last push would sway him. "Are you _scared_, Chrome? Afraid to be near the 'Cons again?" she asked mockingly.

That got him, as she knew it would. Nothing motivated the Minicon like an insult to his courage and pride. All the same, he sounded rather grumpy as he said, "Come on, let's go."

"Knew you'd come around," she smirked, already accelerating.

**XxX**

The contrails were still there, so it was fairly easy to track the two fliers. Slipstream knew she only had a few more Earth minutes before her cloaking device turned lost power – it was able to recharge rather quickly, but with such little cloud cover at her disposal, this would have to be a fast recon trip.

While her travel through Scatterray's bridge-tech to this place had initially been a pleasure cruise, without a hitch the protocol had shifted to an information-gathering exercise. Those two Seekers had been trying to get somewhere, and had not been slow about it. Perhaps they were bringing intelligence to their field captains from another region, and whatever got the 'Cons excited would be of interest to Battleburst. When there were no raids to go on, the older femme hardly left the command center, scanning satellites for any data that indicated Decepticon facilities.

"They've stopped," Chromebolt reported. "Stopped and transformed. We'll get to them on the other side of that cloud."

A large, puffy cumulus cloud was hovering just before Slipstream. _Perfect, _she thought – her cloaking device was down to one Human minute. Without hesitation, she buried herself inside the moisture, but her scanners abruptly detected a new anomaly.

"They're gone. I had their signatures, but then they just disappeared." Puzzled, the Stalker edged forward until she could see the place the two Seeker signals had been – then she froze in horror.

Hovering in mid-air was a Decepticon beacon, and even without scans she knew what its function was: mimicry of two signals.

_They had known I was here._ And just as the thought crossed her processer, she heard two very unpleasant sounds: the almost shimmery sound of her cloaking device shutting down, and the roars of at least ten sets of jet engines ripping through the skies.

Slipstream wheeled about, looking for an exit – but there was none to be had. Decepticon soldiers, all flight-capable, had she and Chromebolt covered at every side, almost like they had appeared out of thin air, and they were outnumbered five to one at least. All wore the proper insignia, though; none of them had the strange red symbols that Battleburst claimed were the markings for a different kind of 'Con.

One of them – a grey flier; unusual in this predominantly purple bunch – transformed and instantly fired the thrusters on his pedes and back. The Stalker knew him from video captures and data files back at base: Starscream, the Decepticon Sky Commander and their current leader after Megatron's death. If she could disable him at least, there was a chance that the rogue pair could escape.

"Revert," ordered Starscream. Normally Slipstream wouldn't listen to any orders given by a 'Con, but considering the circumstances – she had ten-plus sets of weapons pointed at her, including Thermo Rocket Launchers – she conceded that obeying would get her out of this faster. After all, her shockwave tech wouldn't do much good in alt-mode.

Triggering the function inside her processer, a function Humans would equate with instinctive knowledge, the Stalker transformed. The F-22 Falcon twisted, wings becoming arms and the front splitting apart into her legs. Her helm and torso unfolded – unlike Battleburst and Lunarflash, who had their alt-mode cockpit on the front of their torsos, Slipstream's was on her back. Inside, Chromebolt held still, waiting for her to make her move as she hovered on her thrusters.

She thought she knew what would come next. If they didn't start interrogating her on the spot, they would try to cuff her and take her to the _Nemesis_, which would prompt her to deploy her shockwave and make an escape. Slipstream expected all these things, but what actually happened surprised her.

As the Decepticons saw her in her bipedal form, surprised murmurs thrummed through the group, and their helms turned so they could lock optics. Even Starscream looked surprised for a moment, before he barked at his troops to remain in their positions. Bewilderment filled her, but Slipstream took care to not let it show. How could they possibly act like they recognized her? Every enemy she had fought in the facilities had been either offlined or too glitched to give an accurate description to the top brass. Could they have missed a datafile, one that had image captures of herself from security cameras?

"Slipstream," Starscream hissed, and a wave of fear filled her. _They knew._ This was bad, catastrophically so. The collective anonymous status for her and the others was compromised. Slipstream _had _to get back to Mars to warn the others.

She saw the Vehicons moving in on her – clearly the Stalker had missed some command when immersed in her processer-drifts – and reacted. Flinging out her limbs, Slipstream activated her defensive shockwave, and was gratified to see the whole company be pushed back by the blast of sound and electricity. In the same astrosecond, she cut power to her thrusters, allowing Earth's gravity to take hold and send her and the Minicon plummeting like a pair of suicidal skydivers.

They were past 1300 feet in nanokliks – with her body as it was, metal and falling vertically, they had already hit Earth's terminal velocity – and as Slipstream turned her body so she was falling with her back to the ground, she saw that Starscream and his troops had recovered already. All of them were transformed and raining fire down on her, but only two were almost on her. Both were Energon Seekers, but their colorations were different: one was a rather garish shade of mauve, while the other was chrome-white and red. Slipstream triggered her weaponry functions, and her left servo retracted, allowing her Scatterblaster to take its place. With practiced ease she snapped off the safety function, stabilized the fully-automatic gun with her other servo, and pointed the barrel at the closer of the pair.

Three blasts of tightly-clustered projectiles shot out at the red-chrome flier, and much to her satisfaction, all three slammed into his nosecone. Without missing a beat, Slipstream transferred her sights to the other and let loose with the rest of the clip.

Both mechs veered off as their flight became unstable, and Slipstream seized the current break. Retracting the Scatterblaster and giving Chromebolt a brief warning, the Stalker assumed her alt-mode and fired her engines at precisely 5000 feet above sea level. Inside the cockpit, the Minicon projected a hologram around himself, giving him the appearance of a Human.

"Chromebolt," the Stalker rapped out, "what's the status of the 'Cons? Are they still pursuing?"

"Affirmative. The two you shot are crash-landing near the ruins, but their buddies are still on our afterburners."

"Slaggit," she groaned, even as she barrelrolled out of a missile salvo's way. "Put me in to Scatterray."

"Done."

"Scatterray, this is Slipstream. The 'Cons were waiting for us; we flew into an ambush. We need a bridge out of here, STAT!"

"Can do. Battleburst needs Chromebolt and Quicksilver back at base, but Lunarflash ran into some trouble on her end. I need to finish bridging her back first, but I'm sending the coordinates for your bridge now. It'll open in T-minus two Earth minutes and counting."

Data streamed through the comm. link, and the Stalker mentally pinpointed it as a location in another part of the Mojave. After checking the rear scanners – Starscream and his guard were still in hot pursuit – Slipstream flung herself into a series of aerial acrobatics, making it harder for the enemy to lock on.

"I told you that going after those Seekers was a bad idea," Chromebolt said, and to the stressed-out femme, his voice had an unbelievably smug undertone. Not in the best of moods as it were, Slipstream snapped back, "Would you shut your trap? Get off that high rise and face the facts: you didn't have to take my dare, and you sure as the Pit didn't have to come with me. Save the 'I told you so' for a time when I don't have to worry about getting a missile up my afterburner."

The pair lapsed into a moody silence after that: the Minicon because he was sullen, and the Stalker because she was too busy dodging attacks. The seconds leading up to the bridge opening seemed to stretch on to forever – Slipstream had lost count of how many rockets had been launched at her – but finally Scatterray's voice brought welcome news. "The bridge is opening. Chromebolt, once you and Slipstream are back in base, meet up with Quicksilver and Thunderwing."

"Yes, sir."

For once, Slipstream was glad to be returning to Mars, though she wished she would have better news for the others. During the flight she had regained altitude; now she pointed her nosecone down and poured every bit of her energy into a dive towards the bridging point. She dared to check her scanners for an astrosecond, and to her astonishment, simply abandoning acrobatics and going for pure speed had put several miles between her and the Decepticons.

Something about that niggled in the back of her processer, but she pushed it aside for now: she could see the tell-tale energy waves that surrounded the bridge. Even as more missiles erupted in a last-ditch attempt to knock her out of the sky, the Stalker whipped into the crevasse that held the portal, transformed, and allowed sheer momentum to carry she and her companion back to Mars, letting the portal close behind them.

**XxX**

The instant the bridge-portal closed, the empty-handed Decepticons landed and transformed, looking to Starscream for orders. The grey-red Seeker, for once, was silent, contemplating the place Slipstream and her Minicon companion had vanished.

"Lord Starscream?" one brave soldier dared to ask. The Sky Commander looked sharply at the mech, and he interpreted it as a signal to remain silent. Collectively, the majority of the Decepticons weren't very pleased that this too-ambitious Energon Seeker was in command again after Megatron's accident, but most kept it to themselves and followed whatever orders that were given to them. They'd all seen what Starscream had done to the Autobot Cliffjumper, and none of them felt like being taken offline in such a manner.

Satisfied by this sign of obedience, the arch-Seeker triggered his comm. link. _::Soundwave, come in.::_

_::Yes, Lord Starscream.:: _The spymaster was using another Vehicon's voice instead of his own – it had been over three Earth years since he'd spoken with his own. Ordinarily this quirk irritated Starscream, but right now he had more important things to be concerned about.

_::Has the _Hardlock_ returned yet?::_

Soundwave's reply – instead of one voice – was a spliced-together amalgamation of many; Starscream briefly heard himself at times. _::It docked two Earth hours ago. The crew is currently resting.::_

Without another word, the Sky Commander shut off the comm. Soundwave had a reputation of knowing everything his associates knew – some said he could read minds – but the grey-plated Seeker was determined to keep him in the dark as much as possible until the spymaster's work was needed.

The current leader of the Decepticons now turned to the troops that had assisted in the ambush. All were relatively high-ranking and trustworthy – in any case, it was unlikely they would willingly disclose any information from this encounter to those not meant to hear about it. Half he now sent back to the ruins, where his subordinate Thundercracker was gathering what information he could about the attack. Thundercracker had already interviewed Swerveback, the mech that had given vital clues to the Autobot's possible partnership with these rogue fliers, and had suggested they lay a trap in the sky in case they came back.

After sending a comlinked message to the other flier to obtain what image and video captures from the skirmish as he could from the group, Starscream addressed to the remaining four. "We return to the _Nemesis_." Without another word, the five reassumed alt-mode and ripped into the sky.

**XxX**

**Location: Olympus Mons**

**Weather: Calm**

**Time: 2:56 PM (Earth PST)**

When Slipstream emerged from the bridge into the base, she found herself being welcomed by Lunarflash, whose chassis was covered in so many crumple marks that the Stalker almost said what first came to mind, which had something to do with Earth's moon, a Decepticon master blaster, and the differences between craters and interface panels. Thankfully, self-preservation triumphed over impulse, and Slipstream edited her statement into a more tactful variation. "What happened to you?"

The monochromatic femme shook her helm, a scowl firmly in place. "Do me a favor and don't ask for the whole story until Battleburst and Scatterray finish chewing us out. I nearly got my aft handed to me by a black and yellow dirtkisser."

One of the doors to the hanger opened, framing Quicksilver and Thunderwing. Chromebolt scampered away to join his brothers, leaving Slipstream to stare at the Skyraider. "A mudslogger almost kicked your aft?" she asked, not quite sure if Lunarflash was yanking her chains or not.

"Is there an echo in here?" the younger femme shot back sarcastically. "Yes, he almost beat me!"

"Simmer down, Lune," the olive-violet femme said, worried. Lunarflash hardly ever got angry – if she was snappish, this meant her pride had been stung pretty badly. She hated having to break the news about the encounter to her trinemate, but it would come out eventually, and she might as well do it now, even if she got a lecture relating to the Skyraider's earlier concerns.

"I've got worse news: I was ambushed by Decepticons that looked like Decepticons – the ones that were wearing the right insignia. One of them was Starscream, and when he forced me out of my alt-mode, they recognized me; called me by my designation."

Lunarflash's grouchiness vanished instantly, replaced by fear. "They did?" she asked hoarsely. Slipstream briefly considered re-using the echo comment, then rejected it.

"They did."

The ebony-ivory femme shook her helm; the Stalker braced herself for a lecture but none came. Scatterray's voice came over the intercom system, interrupting whatever Lunarflash might have said. "Lunarflash, Slipstream, Battleburst wants to talk to you two in the communications center."

Both exchanged worried looks – neither of them were looking forward to this. "Listen, Slipstream," the Skyraider said as they started walking, "if, by some miracle, you survive this and I don't, I want my shell scrapped up and buried somewhere on Mars; I don't care about the exact location. Okay?"

"Alright, and if the reverse happens, could you do the same for me?"

"Not a problem."

**XxX **

**A/N: **Lunarflash and Slipstream don't have much confidence in their chances of survival, do they? =P I'm thinking of having a flashback moment that details Lunarflash's encounter with Bumblebee (it _was_ Bumblebee she ran into), but I'm not sure if I want to. Any thoughts?

Next chapter: Starscream plots, Raf hacks, and the femmes have a bonding moment.

(BTW: In case my comment earlier wasn't very clear (and it probably wasn't), Battleburst's explanation about the Autobots and their different insignias was that they represent a different branch of the Decepticon army. =))

-Inferna


	5. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

**Location: Earth's Atmosphere, En Route to **_**Nemesis**_

**Weather: Clear**

**Time: 3:10 PM (PST)**

Starscream didn't like admitting that things were out of his control. Before the war, he had been the commanding officer for countless Seekers in the Cybertronian Air Force and an aide for Optimus Prime's predecessor, Sentinel Prime. More recently, he had been appointed as the commander of the Decepticon forces when Megatron had left to gather more troops, a position he had held for three Earth years. During that time, he had set the forces to work at mining the rich Energon deposits: no vein was touched without his command. He had been _in control_, the same way he was in control of his flight while he and his squadron flew towards the _Nemesis_.

When the rogues had attacked, that had been an affront to his control. Encountering Slipstream with that Minicon, whose involvement with the attacks had been confirmed several times already, had disturbed the Sky Commander far more than he had let on. Knowing that she was part of the group was a development that had to be approached with caution. Such was Slipstream's reputation.

As the Seeker and his guard flew into a position next to the _Nemesis _and the code was sent to open the hanger, he pondered. Before the War, Slipstream had been an ex-scientist that had switched her focus to military affairs not long before Megatron's revolution, and at the time of the Battle of Praxus, she had risen to the commanding position of the Stalkers, a sub-division of the Air Force. Unlike the Energon Seekers, Stalkers were less focused on bombing and dogfights and collectively well-known for their skills in stealth, sniping, and recon, and were considered to be the fastest breed of flier on Cybertron. Slipstream had been the finest hunter on the planet during those times, and had been Starscream's trusted lieutenant.

He knew her service record was impressive, almost stellar. He also knew, as they glided and landed inside the massive warship, that not long after the Great Exodus, Slipstream had vanished and never come back. The popular opinion on the _Nemesis _was that she was a yellow-plated deserter, but Starscream – like the surviving Stalkers – wasn't so sure of that. It didn't fit at all with personal experiences with her. She was cunning, cruel, and sarcastic, among other things, but she wasn't a coward.

The Decepticons on duty shut the doors, allowing the ship's artificial atmosphere to return to the hanger. The arch-Seeker and his guard transformed and landed on their pedes, and without a word he began to return to the ship at large. Those on duty saluted as they opened the door, but he only nodded curtly before dismissing his guards.

They melted into the labyrinth of corridors – probably heading to the rec room for a refuel. Ordinarily Starscream would head up to the bridge, where he could keep on top of any intelligence that Soundwave and his subordinates had dug up, but not now. Soundwave would want to know just why he had contacted him about the _Hardlock_, and now was not the time for everyone and their split-spark twin to know that Slipstream had emerged from the void of unexplored space.

That had been partly why the grey-red Seeker had not ordered for a groundbridge to be opened for him. He needed time to get his thoughts – and plans – in order.

The War Room was on the deck above this one, located midship. Starscream made it there quickly, and when he sealed the doors behind him and checked the monitors, he found that Thundercracker had followed his instructions to the letter. Every image capture taken by the drone they had planted above the site, along with audio and video clips donated by the other Seekers that had participated in the ambush, had been condensed and sent to the War Room.

Downloading the information into a datachip and erasing traces of it from the memory banks, the Seeker looked it over. True, the audio wasn't as good as Soundwave could have made it, and perhaps the videos and images weren't as crisp, but they would suit his needs. Starscream reopened his comm. channels and sought out one Decepticon in particular. _::Nightshock, come in.::_

Barely a nanoklik passed before a reply came. _::Yes, Lord Starscream,:: _said the femme, voice silvery and smooth despite the fact she must have just come out of recharge.

_::Report to the War Room immediately.::_

_::I'm on my way. Nightshock out.::_

The entire exchange could not have lasted longer than twenty astroseconds. Such was Nightshock's nature: cool, efficient, and deadly. She had been the second in command of the Stalkers since Slipstream had vanished, and as its current leader, she would be the best to confer with about this situation. For some reason, Nightshock didn't enjoy being the leader, preferring the days when she had been Slipstream's right-servo-femme. Starscream didn't see how anyone could _prefer _being second to anyone, but to each their own.

True to form, it wasn't long before the doors opened to admit the Stalker. The femme – as an officer that did not operate on Earth – still wore the alt-mode that was programmed into her after she had emerged from the Well of All Sparks: the model of inter-stellar jets that the Stalkers all had as their primary alt-mode. Her frame was a velvety black, with ribbons of electric blue criss-crossing over her like the stripes of the Earth tiger.

"You sent for me, my Lord?" Nightshock asked, standing with her backstrut straight and wings rigid before the Decepticon throne. For the last three years it had been vacant, waiting for Megatron to return from his travels, but after the space bridge incident, the Seeker had begun to occupy it himself. Some of the original Decepticons – the gladiators and laborers from Kaon that Megatron had rallied – had grumbled that this was a sacrilege, as Megatron was still alive, but she herself saw the wisdom.

Alive the Decepticon Warlord might be, but there wasn't much leading he could do while in stasis lock.

"Affirmative. There has been a new development in the situation with the rogues, and a puzzling one at that. I believe you could shed some clarity to it – you _have _been keeping up on it, I presume?"

"That I have, though I do not understand my Lord's meaning," she murmured, her thin optic ridges furrowing in confusion. "But if I can be of service to you, I will."

Satisfied, the grey Energon Seeker passed the datachip to her. "These were taken from an ambush arranged less than one Earth hour ago. Two of the rogues returned to the scene of last night's attack, and fell into our trap."

"Where are they now?" Nightshock asked, opening a port on her left arm to insert the chip into.

"They were able to escape through a groundbridge. Once you see their identities, you will see how that was possible."

Curiosity piqued by Starscream's avoidance of the subject – that was not something he did very often – the black-blue Stalker plugged the chip into her arm and downloaded the content inside to her processer. From his position on the Decepticon throne, the arch-Seeker had a very good view to her reaction to the data: her wings at first drooped in astonishment, then flared out as her body unconsciously tightened, her fight-or-flight programs being run.

"Slipstream is here? In this system?" she asked, her voice somewhat faltering, as if she was unsure of herself – strange on its own, as Nightshock was a very confident femme.

"Yes, Nightshock. Tell me, does Slipstream seem like herself in those images?"

The Stalker recovered quickly, and was once again composed when she replied. "No, my Lord. The light in her optics is unfocused, like she is confused. While it wouldn't be a surprise when she got ambushed, the images of her falling and shooting at your lieutenants show the same thing. I'm no medic, but it may indicate processer damage, as I doubt the time away from the Decepticons was sufficient to erase memories of the War."

"I agree. Records show that Lord Megatron" – Nightshock noted that Starscream didn't bother to hide his sneer of contempt in regard to the comatose ex-gladiator – "dispatched her alone from the _Nemesis _five stellar cycles after the Exodus. Her mission took her close to where the Autobot force was last known to be at the time, in search of an artifact from the time of the Golden Age, and she never returned."

"Close to Autobot-controlled space," mused the femme, removing the datachip from her arm and turning it over between two fingers. "Perhaps they caused what ails her now. I doubt Prime had a direct servo in it, but there must be scientists with fewer scruples embedded in their ranks. My Lord, did the records say what the artifact was?"

"Negative, but they did suggest the artifact was on Earth."

"It may still be on Earth, if she was captured and never recovered it."

"Perhaps, but that isn't my intent. If we find the rogues again, the skills of Silent Echo will be required planetside to apprehend Slipstream and her cohorts."

"We will be ready when the time comes. Burning Sky, Shadewing, and Blackwind have all wished to serve on Earth for a time."

"Very good. Return to your squad: I must task Soundwave with finding any transmissions that will indicate they have come back. I will contact you when the time comes."

"Yes, my Lord." Nightshock turned and began walking to the door, then paused as a thought occurred to her. "My Lord, if we are successful in capturing the rogues, what will be their fate?"

Upon the Decepticon throne, Starscream's expression was almost forbidding, but his response was cool. "The grounder, the Minicons, and the two other fliers will be questioned extensively, and if they do not have any other use to us, they will be disposed of. Slipstream will be analyzed, questioned, and – if circumstances transpire in our favor – she _may _return to the Decepticons. Am I clear, Captain Nightshock?"

"Yes, my Lord." The ebony-blue femme took her leave of the War Room, and when the clicks of her heel struts faded from his audio perception, Starscream left as well.

**XxX**

**Location: **_**Nemesis, **_**Deck D**

**Weather: N/A**

**Time: 3:24 PM (PST)**

Deck D was the part of the _Nemesis_ that was mainly occupied by the fliers. Most were former members of the Cybertronian Air Force that had joined the Decepticons, though their reasons had varied. Flying gladiators had been rare in the pits of Kaon and Slaughter City, but many of that rare breed had been part of Megatron's revolutionary force. Others had joined out of fear for their lives when Vos had been invaded and taken, but they were not fully trusted by the other Decepticons. The vast majority were the lieutenants that had followed Starscream to Megatron's side, and they made up the highest ranks of this new Air Force.

Nightshock was amongst the most powerful of the fliers, and was considered a minor power on the _Nemesis_ – or would be if she and her squadron were actually on the cruiser long enough to play the cutthroat games of the commanding officers. When the _Hardlock_ was docked, she was a common sight on Deck D, but she didn't interact very much with anyone other than members of the Stalkers. Today, she didn't converse with anyone she met outside of salutations – she was too busy thinking.

She was returning to the rest of Silent Echo: the elite squadron of fliers that was commanded by the leader of the Stalkers. Nightshock had inherited leadership of the group upon Slipstream's disappearance, but even the change in headship had not affected the team's fearsome reputation and flawless mission record. This mission happened to have more on the line than most did, however.

Starscream's parting words had implied that Slipstream might return to her position as the arch-Stalker. Nightshock hoped that he was telling the truth, and that circumstances would conspire to restore her friend – being the boss of an entire division plus a mixed squadron, as opposed to being the second to Slipstream, both in the squad and in their trine, was not much fun. She just needed to fill her squad in on the situation.

Pausing in front of a door, the Stalker keyed in the access code that opened the portal into the quarters for Silent Echo, letting it slide open. After their return from an assignment in another system, everyone was either recharging or relaxing; Nightshock herself had been in recharge after wrapping up her report to Soundwave when Starscream had called for her.

Much to her surprise, everyone was active and waiting, a pall of smoke hovering in the artificial atmosphere. That emanated from Sunraider's cy-gar, who was sitting in a chair beside the table Burning Sky and Shadewing occupied, watching them play cards. Blackwind had reclaimed ownership of the dark corner, surrounded by stacks of datapads – probably working on his latest flight of scientific fancy. Back in the old days, Nightshock and Slipstream would have been with him, helping with the work, but responsibilities kept the current Stalker leader occupied.

Gesturing for the dark Energon Seeker to join her, the black and blue femme crossed the room and pulled up a seat beside the others. Something in her expression must have tipped them off, since the two other Stalkers immediately put away their card hands and Sunraider extinguished his cy-gar.

"What was up, Boss?" Burning Sky asked, the dim light wrapping over her scarlet and ebony shell as she spoke. "What'd Starscream want?"

"Probably another mission," answered Blackwind, taking a seat next to gold-plated Sunraider. "That was it, right?"

"If it is, I hope it sounded more exciting than the last one," grumbled Shadewing, whose dark grey armor almost made her look like a female version of Starscream. "There weren't enough Autobots to make it worth the trip."

For a moment Nightshock was quiet, looking at the other four – at Shadewing, the youngest member of Silent Echo; at Burning Sky, the wielder of heavy weapons and her fellow trinemate; at Blackwind, the field medic; at Sunraider, the Seeker whose sniping skills were on par with Slipstream herself. All had been part of the original Silent Echo during the Great War, yet they all unconsciously left a space when they gathered for a meeting. Despite Slipstream's disappearance and the fact they had an empty place for a new warrior, they had never moved to fill it. Somehow, they all knew that the original Stalker commander could not be replaced.

"No," she finally said, placing the datachip Starscream had given her onto the table. "It has something to do with Slipstream."

**XxX**

**Location: Olympus Mons, Mars**

**Weather: Windy**

**Time: 4:45 PM (Earth PST)**

Much to the surprise of the two beat-up rogues, the apocalyptic dressing-down they had been expecting from their conference with Battleburst did not come. After reporting their respective encounters with the enemy to the indigo-silver femme, it was the Blackbird-former's turn to drop a proverbial bomb.

As it turned out, she and Scatterray had been expected something like this to happen for some time.

"You think they could've told us," grumbled Lunarflash, getting off the medical berth and stretching her joints, the new welds on her replaced armor plates gleaming on her ventral side. Her body had taken a sound beating from the black-yellow mudslogger that had forced her and Quicksilver to ground, with plasma burns on her shins and crumple marks from hard stone all over her torso. By contrast, Slipstream had escaped with minor damage, mostly cosmetic in nature.

Across the room, Slipstream herself put away the paint she had been applying to her scratches and fanned her wings, trying to make it dry faster. "Technically they did – just not beforehand."

"True," the Skyraider conceded. "Still would've been nice if they did tell us earlier – we wouldn't have been as worried about their reaction if they did."

The Stalker shrugged, waving aside Scatterray's medical drones and opening the way out. "Maybe that was the point: always expect the worst from life."

"Great, another one of those life-lessons Scatterray's always giving us. Just what I needed." A pause as the two femmes left the medical bay and began walking down the hallways side-by-side, then: "Sometimes I think the others don't trust us."

"Think about it, Lunarflash: They stumbled across our stasis-locked shells in that Primus-forsaken jungle, and when they reactivated us, we had no clue how we had gotten there. Do you think we'd trust ourselves, if we were in their position?"

A sigh came from the younger flier – clearly she was determined to remain in a foul mood. Slipstream readjusted her line of thought to something that had occurred to her since they had entered the medbay, than broached its accompanying subject carefully. "You probably have a point, though. They're hiding something, or at least are up to something."

"And that's supposed to be news? They lead this crusade we're on; they're always up to something."

"Suspend your disbelief for a klik and listen. While those drones were welding your armor back on, I heard the bridge activate and then deactivate. It might not mean anything, but it sounds a bit odd. And I don't know about you, but I think it's a little strange about how I managed to outrace Starscream and his crew to the bridge back here. Battleburst always said that he was the fastest flier in the Decepticon army, even with an Earth alt-mode. So how could I beat him through pure speed?"

Lunarflash was silent for a few moments, allowing Slipstream to duck back to the Energon dispensary and get two cubes for themselves. After ingesting about a third of the cube's contents, the Skyraider added slowly, "You're right. There was another thing about it, something I didn't mention to Battleburst: that Decepticon I fought had a Human with him: A little Human, with a gold helm decoration, some sort of optical enhancement on his faceplate, and a yellow, blue, and white chassis."

"Technically, all Humans are little compared to us, Lune. Do you mean 'halfway up your lower leg' little or 'barely to your pede-joint' little?"

"Definitely pede-joint, though I think his helm décor gave him some extra height. It's weird, since the most contact Decepticons have with the fleshlings is when they accidentally step on them. I doubt that a special division of their crew would have Human companions – those two we fought last night didn't have any."

Before they could think too deeply into this, their comm. links crackled, and Scatterray's voice echoed in their audio receptors. "Slipstream, Lunarflash, come to the communications center. You'll want to see this."

**XxX**

**Location: Jasper, Nevada (Outskirts)**

**Weather: Sunny**

**Time: 4:51 PM (PST)**

Bumblebee was still in the medical wing of the Autobot base, but Raf doubted that it was because Ratchet still needed to patch him up. The last time he'd wandered by, Arcee and Optimus had been in there too, so they were probably pumping his friend for information on the fight. Optimus would need the details to accurately pass them along to Agent Fowler, certainly, but it would most likely come down to one single question: Would Lunarflash, the flier that had attacked him and Bumblebee in the desert, be safe to welcome back into the ranks, if and when they finally apprehended her?

It had been something Raf had been thinking about since that very morning – had it just been that morning? – when Bumblebee had filled him in on the new Cybertronians and told him about how he and Lunarflash had been friends back on Cybertron, sort of like Bulkhead and Wheeljack's friendship even though he and she had not been part of the same part of the Autobots, and that – according to Bumblebee himself – pure luck had caused them to be fighting together in their first battle.

Sitting in the nook the Autobots had set aside for their Human companions, the blond boy looked around at the others. Jack and Miko had found the whole angle of Bumblebee knowing one of the rogue Cybertronians fascinating to a point, but they had been far more intrigued when Raf had told them that the same female had attacked them on the way to the base. Miko had been disappointed it hadn't happened to her and Bulkhead: both because she was confident that he could've beaten Lunarflash and brought her to base, and that she had missed out on _another_ brawl between Cybertronians. She'd been forced to be content with Raf's account, and he'd thrown in extra details to make sure she was placated. There were few things in the galaxy scarier than a grouchy Miko, aside from a ticked-off Megatron or Ratchet in the blackest of foul moods.

Even the eyewitness account of a clash of the titans couldn't hold the attention of the others forever – after a while Jack's eyes had started to glaze over – so their powwow had eventually broken up. Jack had shifted into his own little corner to do his homework, whereas Miko had been spending her time procrastinating on her homework, alternatively between video games and her drawing pad. She had shifted the pad into an angle that allowed the 9th-grader to get a glimpse of what she was working on, and while not quite on par with some of his artist classmates, it was undoubtedly a rough sketch of a Sukhoi Su-35, Lunarflash's alt-mode.

The image returned Raf to his original question: was Lunarflash really someone they wanted hanging around base? The boy tried to imagine the black-and-white flier – who had, in the course of her brawl with Bumblebee, fused his door-wing-joints and tried to use what had been identified as an EMP Shotgun on him – playing video games with him, Jack, and Miko, Lobbing with Bulkhead, and dodging wrenches from Ratchet. With his only impression being a negative one, Raf couldn't envision it, despite Bumblebee's vouching for her.

Curiosity now aroused, he pulled out his laptop and booted it up. Early in their partnership with the Autobots, he had configured the computer's systems so he could exchange data with the base's mainframe. Doing so had allowed Ratchet to gain access to Human programs, but since it worked both ways, Raf could access some of the data files the Autobots themselves had. Optimus had configured them to be read in English and Japanese (for Miko's sake) as well as Cybertronian, but when Ratchet had discovered this, the somewhat paranoid medic had encrypted some of the more important programs.

The blonde computer whiz hadn't yet bothered to try and crack them – assuming he was successful with the Cybertronian codes in the first place, he had seen the medic throw too many wrenches at high velocity to make the attempt.

The encrypted systems were mostly concerning the base's functions and the Autobots' private connection to Agent Fowler, but Raf wasn't interested in those: he was more interested in the service records. Casting a casual look over the top of his screen – neither Miko nor Jack had noticed his actions – he pulled up the database and began searching for Lunarflash. While the database could search by anything from rank to "chassis build" (whatever that was), he simply entered in what he knew.

_Designation: Lunarflash_

_Gender: Femme_

_Alt-Mode: Jet_

A half-dozen hits appeared, but it didn't take much searching to find the flier he was looking for: the image attached to her records confirmed it, even if she was in a base Cybertronian form. Unknown to him, he was seeing the same data that Optimus Prime had pulled up earlier that day.

Unlike the Autobot leader, however, his eyes were the eyes of a hacker. And even without seeing the bare code, he knew there had been some hacking done before he had shown up.

The ninth-grader's eyebrows knit in puzzlement and resolve. He couldn't access the code unless Ratchet or Optimus – or both – allowed him, and neither were available at the moment. All the same, he wouldn't need to look at the code to know that the data concerning Lunarflash's status was corrupted, or at least been tampered with by a better hacker than him.

His musings were cut off by an alarm from the giant array of computers that Ratchet was so protective over. A loud chorus of heavy pedesteps heralded Ratchet sprinting back in like his skidplates were on fire, hotly pursued by Arcee, Bumblebee, and Optimus himself. Jack and Miko had dropped their notebooks and were peering over the side of the nook to listen in on what was being said; Raf shut his laptop and joined them on the sofa.

"Unknown Cybertronian signatures detected in Arizona," Ratchet reported, everyone trying to read over his shoulders. "Seems to be centered on the Grand Canyon region; two of the signatures match the rogues Arcee, Bulkhead, and Bumblee fought."

Optimus leaned over and sent a signal, calling Bulkhead back from patrol duty while Ratchet found the ex-Wreaker and opened a groundbridge. Behind the Prime, Bumblebee sent out a few clicks and whistles, outlining his question.

"We'll have to see," he said quietly in response, as the portal closed behind the arriving Bulkhead.

**XxX**

**A/N: **Bleeeeh. Sorry about how long this took, guys; I hit a patch of writer's block, and the end of this feels kinda weak to me. , Hopefully I'll be able to make up for it by writing a good, proper action-y fight in the next chapter.

I'm guesstimating there'll be two, maybe three, more chapters left in _Loose Ends,_ then I'll take a break and prepare for the sequel.

Thanks for your patience. =D

-Inferna


End file.
